A Book A Month?
I used to read books regularly, but in the last few years my reading frequency has decreased to one or perhaps two books a year. That’s a real shame, since reading keep ones imagination healthy and really helps increase the quality of my own writing. This year, I’ll try (hence the question mark in the title of this post) to read book every month. In December last year, I started reading The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, and I hope to finish it now in January.
The novel is written in 1962, but I didn’t discover it until I read about Amazon’s TV series based on the book. The idea of an alternative history where Japan and Germany won World War II sounded fascinating, and I decided to read the book. I’m about half way through now, and while Mr. Dick’s backdrop is still interesting, the book itself scores about 50 or so on my meh-scale.
Here is my reading list for the first five months of 2016. Two rules apply: 1) If a book is boring, I can throw it away unfinished at any time and never pick it up again. 2) If a more interesting book appears on my radar, any of the books in the list can be replaced.
- January: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
- February: The Running Man by Stephen King (written as Richard Bachman)
- March: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- April: Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson
- May: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
So how to read these works of fiction? Old fashioned dead trees, or modern digital ink on electronic paper? Well, being an old fart, I have to admit I prefer words to be printed with ink on paper, but that’s only the nostalgia talking: Books are just inconvenient, they don’t appear immediately in your mailbox when you order them, and they take up precious space everywhere. And let us not forget how much hassle books are whenever you’re moving.
In conclusion, I’ll go for the digital version if one is available. And of course I have to sit down and create a small A Book A Month section on this website. Cover art, author information, reading progress and reviews. Of course there will be reviews!
Update: The A Book A Month page is now live!
Feedback
Do you have any thoughts you want to share? A question, maybe? Or is something in this post just plainly wrong? Then please send an e-mail to vegard at vegard dot net with your input. You can also use any of the other points of contact listed on the About page.
ChristianHey Vegard,
As a lover of great Science Fiction, I have a great recommendation for you: Neal Stephenson. He is a wonderful writer, and I can’t recommend his books enough. I would start with ‘Snow Crash’ or ‘Diamond Age’.
Warning: While you will feel smarter after reading the book, there is a chance that you will find that your vocabulary isn’t quite up to the task all the time. A Kindle device or app with instant word definitions is a great tool to have.
I tried reading Snow Crash a while back, and it didn’t quite click with me. I have no idea why. Managed to get roughly 100 pages in before I decided to call it quits. Maybe I’ll give it another try.
Wouldn’t mind reading a space opera, though, so if you have any suggestions for that, feel free to let me know.
